THE NEW YORKER est unit of urhan life is, then, pertinent and well directed. Unhappily, the main tendency of the metropolItan economy she ardently supports is to turn all business over to big commercial enter- prises increasingly automatic in opera- tion and automatically increasing in size. The huge, impersonal supermarket is symbolically the ultimate goal of un- regulated metropolitan expansion Ylrs. Jacobs wishes to fight new forms of eco- nomic organization that are wiping out choice and varietv. But the notion of achieving this by multiplying the num- ber of short streets and increasIng the number of marginal small enterprises absurdly ignores the larger forces that must be controlled and humanized. The dominant economic institutions in our cities deliherately work to curtail freedom and reduce autonomy. There is no dividing line between the dy- namic forces Mrs. Jacobs favors and the cataclysmIc forces she opposes, for they have the same origin-an obses- sive concern for power and profit, and an indifference to more humane in- terests. In passing from that now barely recognizable unit of urban life, the neighborhood, to the larger prohlems of the city, Mrs. Jacobs again approaches but never reaches a desirable goal. She has had enough political experi- ence to recognize that the city, by its very SIze, has got out of hand, partIc- ularly out of the hands of its own citi- zens, and that its hugeness causes it to be mIsplanned and misadministered. Be- cause they lack any integral organs for form ula ting policies or making decisions, or even contesting the proposals of the Mavor, the City Planning Commis- sioners, the Borough Presidents, or Mr. Moses, the polItical pressure exerted by local areas is feeble and sporadic, and achieved only with great effort through ad-hoc organIzations. The result has been a docile conformity by our govern- ing agencies to other infl uences, uncon- cerned with the common good. Mrs. ] acobs realizes that if puhlic officials are to be made more responsive to public opinion and be prevented from making wanton changes in neighbor- hoods to favor lending institutions, big contractors, and rich tenants instead of the old residents, politics must be organ- ized on a local basis. So, too, her pro- posed new neIghborhood organ of gov- ernment, like the English borough and unlike the purely formal area of an As- sembly District, must have some coher- ence and Integrity as an economic and social unit. Functions that were once pushed to the periphery of the city, or . ..1>:.... ^' .k.- >., 1=...:.-:>:..... ',.:. ...:" '.,.t'. g . 1r" . .;: .... '.,;.. r :: (i; ,..... ... >"...-*t.. ':'.:.':- ......::. .:.J>J.:: ::-:>;..:.-:-"o/^..... 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